Educational testing, state comparisons nothing new

Now that April is gone and May has begun, schools throughout Missouri and across the nation are wrapping up their state assessments and end-of-course exams. That's basically a euphemism for "testing" students.

What are state assessments? They are exams developed by textbook vendors and testing centers in cooperation with educators to determine how much content students have mastered at specific grade levels. What is the content? In most cases, it is mathematics, science, language arts and (in high schools only) social studies. What is "mastery"? It is a construct that attempts to measure what students know and what they can do with the information. What is a construct? Too abstract for me; look it up. ...

The frame of reference and recollection for most people over the age of 40 might be daily skill and drill with Friday quizzes culminating in end of unit tests: true-false, fill-in-the-blank, short answer, essay and multiple choice. (In my day we called it "multiple guess.") Once in a blue moon in elementary school and then again in junior or senior high, Baby Boomers might remember taking the California Test of Basic Skills or the Metropolitan Achievement Test. Beaver Cleaver took both.

When I first got into the education business, we talked a lot about criterion-referenced and norm-referenced tests. In simplistic terms, the former is now akin to formative assessments and the latter can be conceptualized as summative assessments. (For those with Ph.D.'s in assessment, testing, and measurement, please accept my apology. I know this is neither precise jargon nor 100% correct.)

Here's the point: All the hubbub about the "Common Core," state comparisons and international rankings is nothing new. Educators and policymakers have been at this since Sputnik! Call it whatever you want, but it is still teaching and learning facts and the ability to apply information - in a word, "know-how."

So, "Where's the beef?!" It might be with both our lexicon and culture. Sociologists are not the only ones who go "Duh" when someone like me proclaims that our society has changed and will continue to do so. The number of limited and non-English speaking students in our schools continues to increase. Technologies advance at an alarming rate. Poverty changes everything. Policies will remain political. Duh, again.

As an assistant superintendent in charge of curriculum, instruction and assessment recently told me, "It's nothing new; we're just getting better at it."

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Educational testing, state comparisons nothing new

Now that April is gone and May has begun, schools throughout Missouri and across the nation are wrapping up their state assessments and end-of-course exams. That's basically a euphemism for 'testing'